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Weardale is at its most beautiful in June. These are a few photographs taken recently around the village of St. John's Chapel, in the middle of the dale.
Burnet rose, the most fragrant of all the native wild roses.
A single wood cranesbill plant in a sea of buttercups.
Meadows full of buttercups, seen from Chapel fell
A froth of cow parsley flowers along roadsides and around the edge of fields.
Hawthorn in bloom along the footpath beside the river Wear
Hawthorn still blooming beside Harthope burn. Water levels are low after a very dry spring.
Glorious hay meadows
Lady's mantle and wood cranesbill
Meadow foxtail grass in flower
Pignut's lacy umbels
Lambs fattening
Wood cranesbill
With small grandchildren visiting the garden, we have had to remove the hazardous large garden pond, leaving a small one protected by a safety grill. This spring the garden frogs laid a large amount of spawn in this miniature pool, so I eased the pressure on the pond by transferring some of the spawn to a large glass fish tank, where the tadpoles are growing fast.
Yesterday I noticed this pond skater nymph, with beautiful red eyes, scooting around on the surface. It must have hatched from an egg on water weed that I added from another pond.
At the moment it only has vestigial wings, so can't fly. It will take at least another instar before they develop fully and is able to escape from this confined hunting ground.
Today's Guardian Country Diary is about birds that nest on moorland in Weardale, and the ways in which they defend their fledglings.
Of these, my favourite has to be the curlew. In spring it has that spine-tingling mating call delivered in a long glide across the heather but now, when there are fledglings about, its alarm call is sometimes almost like the yelping of a small dog.
These birds circled around us, trying to lure us away from their fledglings, while we were walking part of the Weardale Way near Wolsingham.
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